Rachel added a quote:
"To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things." — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Rachel added a quote:
"I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness." — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Rachel read and liked Jonathan's review of Notes from Underground (Everyman's Library, #271):

"I first read this novel in college during a period of especially intense teenage intellectual angst. I don't remember why I picked it up; it was a whim. Immediately I recognized the narrator.

Dostoevsky's unnamed narrator/protagonist is ...more I first read this novel in college during a period of especially intense teenage intellectual angst. I don't remember why I picked it up; it was a whim. Immediately I recognized the narrator.

Dostoevsky's unnamed narrator/protagonist is intelligent, sensitive, idealistic -- and morally paralyzed. His intellect and pride, rather than freeing him from the grubbiness of society, have trapped him inside himself. He is unwilling to share his life with less thoughtful people, but this has just made him spiteful and cowardly; the more he tries to live in purity and dignity, the more he loses his remaining self-respect. Society blunders on amiably around him, but he cannot let himself enjoy its silly consolations.

At the same time, he is perceptive enough to realize that he cannot simply blame his environment or unclear thinking for the problem. His freedom of will -- even if his will is to cause harm -- is an essential part of his humanity. He would yearn to stand out from society even if society were perfect. Restlessness and stubbornness are part of the human soul; only machines always behave rationally. So the narrator can neither understand and transcend his own will, nor excuse his faults by denying that his will is his own. It's his very independence of will, his most human quality, that makes him loathe himself.

The solution to the dilemma is not to be found in the book. That's as it should be, for Dostoevsky's whole point (or at least the point I drew from him) is that the solution cannot be reached by looking inward. Self-centeredness, even the idealistic self-centeredness of a Romantic intellectual, is the very source of the disease. Only by looking outward and upward can the individual come to love himself.

I highly recommend the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation.(less) "

Rachel read and liked karen's review of Notes from Underground:

"oh, dear. this is not a character that it is healthy to relate to, is it?? he is a scootch more pathetic than me, and more articulate, but his pettinesses are mine; his misanthropy is mine, his contradictions and weaknesses... i have to go hide now, ...more oh, dear. this is not a character that it is healthy to relate to, is it?? he is a scootch more pathetic than me, and more articulate, but his pettinesses are mine; his misanthropy is mine, his contradictions and weaknesses... i have to go hide now, i feel dirty and exposed...(less) "